Composite fabrics and their manufacture



May 25, 1937. w. w. ROWE 2,081,308

COMPOSITE FABRICS AND THEIR MANUFACTURE Filed May 10, 1934 INVENTOR.

Mizzw ATTORNEYS.

Patented May 25, 1937 UNITED sT-Arss PATENT OFFICE ACTURE William Wallace Rowe, Cincinnati, Ohio, assignor to The Paper Service Company,

Lockland,

, Ohio, a corporation of Ohio Application May 10, 1934, Serial No. 724,936

20 Claims. (01. 154-46) My invention relates broadly to the manufacture of composite fabrics in which a layer of web having stretchability is joined to another web or layer, and, for the sake of an exemplary disclosure herein, I shall describe my inventionin connection with composite fabrics consisting of a layer of creped and corrugated paper joined to a layer of woven textile fabric, it being understood thatthisexemplary disclosure is not limiting.

It is an object of my invention to provide a composite fabric in which to a foundation web there is joined another web of stretchable characteristics, the juncture being suflicient toform of the webs a composite fabric for handling in manufacture or the like, but in which the juncture of the webs is not co-extensive with the surfaces thereof. It is an object of my invention to provide a novel composite fabric in which a stretchable web is joined to a foundation web in such a way that between interspaced areas of juncture there are larger free areas of the first mentioned web. It is an object of my invention to provide a composite fabric formed of joined webs which are readily separated one from the other, for purposes which will hereinafter be set forth. It is also my object to secure the above advantages in a composite fabric characterized by a general attachment of the paper to the cloth or other backing, in such a way that, while there may be unattached areas, yet the paperas a whole is held from shifting with reference to the backing as a whole, so that there is uniform stretching as the backing distorts, and so that there is no formation of stretched-out areas liable to breakage. It is my further object to provide articles made of composite fabrics, which articles may be fitted for re-use after a period of initial use, by removal of one of the plies of the composite fabric. r

It is additionally my object to provide processes and mechanisms for the economic commercial production of fabrics of the classes to a which I have referred hereinabove. 7 These and other objects of myinvention whic will be set forth hereinafter, or will be apparent to those skilled in the art upon reading this specification, I accomplish by that certain construotio and arrangement of parts and in those proced es of which I shall now describe certain exemplary} embodiments. Reference is made to the drawing, wherein Figure 1 is a view of a piece of my novel fabric. Figure 2 is a somewhat exaggerated sectional view of one embodiment thereof. Briefly, in the practice of my invention I comblue with such a foundation fabric as cloth, e. g. burlap, a layer of stretchable paper preferably characterized by having substantial portions thereof displaced out of the initial plane of the web, the two webs being either joined with a 5 separable adhesive or joined together at points, lying essentially in a single plane, and therefore interspaced, leaving the displaced portions of the stretchable web essentially free of attachment. Preferably I employ as the stretchable web, a cor- 10 rugated and creped paper as being one of the most economical multilaterally stretchable webs to which my invention can be applied. I may also, in joining the webs to makethe aforesaid composite fabric, accomplish the juncture there- 15 of as a part of the corrugating step, and more specifically as a part of the steps by which the corrugated paper is treated to set the corrugations therein.

The webs may be treated in a roll coating op- 20 eration and joined, as will be set forth. I have illustrated in Figures 1 and 2 a composite fabric comprising a layer of burlap or the like, I, and a layer of corrugated and creped paper 2. This corrugated creped paper is-preferably of the type 25 in which the corrugations have been crushed so as to set them in the form of pleats which may be more or less irregular. As a consequence of this, as is shown in Figure 2, portions of the paper overlap each other in double folds, as at 3, and 30 portions of the paper are displaced from other portions of the paper, as shown essentially at 4 and 5. If a sheet of such corrugated and creped paper is treated with an adhesive upon one face thereof, so as to coat only those portions of the 35 paper which are 'co-planar at that face, and if the adhesively treated paper is cemented to the web I of burlap (the adhesive areas being shown at 6) it will be noted that portions 4 of the paper are of greater area than the area of the founda- 40 tion web I lying between the adhesively coated areas 6, and are free of adhesive association withthe foundation 'web. These unattached areas permit relatively great distortion of the foundation web without rupture of the paper web; but 45 the full effect of this advantage may not be secured if the adhesive is so applied as either to cement the entire exposed surface of the paper web upon one side to the foundation web, or to cement the pleats together so that these pleats so cannot fold out, when the foundation web is distorted. There is a distinction between pleats and upst ding corrugations, and to almost the same de gee between pleats and crepes. In pleats, portions of the paper are folded over flat- 55 wise upon themselves. In such pleats as are formed in a paper which has been corrugated and then crushed, a cross section of the folded portion shows three layers of paper in superposed relationship. If adhesive gets between the superposed layers it will greatly diminsh the stretchability of the web by preventing a folding out of the pleats. The character of cement. or adhesive is also of importance in that if pleats are cemented together with a continuously plastic substance such as soft asphalt, a. peeling action under stress may be permitted, whereas other adhesives like rubber latex or dried pastes or glues, or hard and brittle asphalts will not permit this. Rubber latex in the pleats gives some resilience at the expense of ultimate stretchability, while some vegetable pastes are frangible. or peelabie.

I am able also to cement the webs together as a part of the corrugating operation for the paper. I may employ any sort of corrugating apparatus desired, including, but without limitation, that of the copending application of Rowe and Morris, Serial No. 622,698, flied July 15, 1932, which issued March 1'7, 1936, as Patent No. 2,034,421. In joining the webs together as part of a corrugating operation, I prefer to deliver the paper web in corrugated form, coat it with adhesive, preferably only at the peaks of the corrugations, lead theweb of backing substance against it, and pass the two webs through crushing means. The cementing of the corrugated web to the backing web aids in maintaining the corrugations during the crushing operation.

In many instances it will be preferred to apply a cement to the corrugated or corrugated and crushed web by a simple roll coating operation. Here the coating operation and the pressure used may be controlled to effect the coating in any way desired, and particularly to coat only coplanar upstanding portions of the web, or to work the adhesive up into the folds or pleats to a greater or less extent.

The adhesive used may be of various kinds, some being preferred over others for various advantages. .For fabrics which are intended to remain permanently as composite fabrics, I may use any of the usual adhesives, including glues of vegetable or animal origin, asphaltum or the like. Irrespective, however, of the character of the adhesive used, it may be applied so lightly as to make a composite fabric in which the plies are readily separable. may be greatly facilitated, in any event, by the free portions 4 (Fig. 2) if they are not attached to the foundation web. Instead, however, of employing so little adhesive as to facilitate separation of the plies, where such separation is desired, I may employ an adhesive which is removable as by means of a solvent, including adhesives which may be washed out with water, or the like. Thus, I may employ water soluble vegetable pastes. Again, I may employ a type of adhesive which, while it adheres strongly enough to the paper to permit the manufacture and handling as such, of my composite fabric, nevertheless is the sortof adhesive from which the paper may be comparatively readily peeled. Rubber latex is an example of such an adhesive. Rubber latex has the additional advantage that it strengthens the burlap or other textile foundation sheet and locks the strands thereof together at their crossing points at intervals thIO B Out the area of the foundation fabric,

Separation of the pliesv Again, I may employ an adhesive of frangible prior to the disruption of the paper. I thus secure a product in which a paper layer may be stretched and distorted with or independently of the backing or foundation web, to whatever extent is rendered necessary by conditions of use, without danger of disruption of the web.

The advantages of a composite fabric and the subsequent manufacture and handling of articles made therefrom is apparent, since a layer of paper and of cloth may thus be handled as a unit in the making of bags or the like, for example. In this way a composite bag may be made, consisting essentially of an outer textile bag and an inner stretchable paper liner, without the necessity of making the textile bag and the liner separately, inserting one into the other, and stitching about the mouth of the 'bag. Yet, a bag formed in this way has the essential advantages of a bag with a loose liner as known in the trade, without its disadvantages, and when the layers of the compositefabric are separable, as hereinabove set forth, it permits the lined bag to be used as such in the shipment of materials, and then re-used upon removal of the paper liner. The removal of the paper liner will ordinarily be accomplished by turning the bag so as to dispose the paper side outermost, and then peeling the paper from the burlap, subsequently washing the burlap bag when necessary to cleanse it and to remove any remaining traces of the paper, if this be desired.

Having thus described my invention, what I claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is:

1. A composite fabric comprising a foundation web of cloth and a universally stretchable web, said stretchable web adhesively joined to said foundation web at closely interspaced areas, and characterized by a greater surface area of the stretchable web between said areas of juncture than the corresponding surface area of the foundation web.

2. A composite fabric comprising a foundation web of cloth and a universally stretchable web of paper, said stretchable web adhesively joined to said foundation web at closely interspaced areas, the juncture of the two webs being characterized by cemented areas of lesser extent than uncemented' areas.

3. A composite fabric comprising a foundation web. and a web of stretchable paper cemented thereto at frequent intervals, the uncemented areas of said stretchable paper lying essentially in a plane displaced from the plane of the surface of said stretchable web which is directly cemented to said foundation web.

4. A composite fabric comprising a foundation web and a. web of corrugated and creped paper, said webs being adhesively joined together by interspaced areas of adhesive essentially joining the crests of corrugations only upon one side of said paper web to said foundation web.

5. A composite fabric comprising a foundation web and a web of corrugated and creped paper, said webs being adhesively joined together by interspaced areas of adhesive essentially joining the crests of corrugations only upon one side of said paper web to said foundation web, said adcharacterized by crushed corrugations forming pleats, said paper being cemented to said fabric by interspaced areas of adhesive substance, the overlapped portions of said pleats being essentially free of adhesive substance.

7. A composite fabric comprising a foundation Web of cloth and a web of stretchable paper, said webs being-cemented together with a water soft-' enable adhesive.

8. A composite fabric comprising a foundation layer of cloth and a layer of corrugated and creped paper cemented thereto by an adhesive from which one at least of said layers may readily be separated by peeling.

9. A composite fabric comprising a foundation layer of cloth and a layer of corrugated and creped paper cemented thereto'at interspaced areas by rubber derived from rubber latex.

10. A bag formed of a composite material comprising a foundation of cloth and a universally stretchable paper cemented at interspaced intervals only to said cloth with an adhesive having a strength less than the strength of said paper whereby, under conditions of use, areas of said paper will part from areas of said cloth so as to be stretchable and distortable independently thereof.

11. A composite fabric comprising a cloth layer and a layer of universally stretchable paper, said paper being cemented to said cloth, and areas of said paper being free to expand independently of said cloth while said paper and said cloth remain in general in adhesively joined relationship so as to constitute a composite material.

12. A composite fabric comprising a'layer of backing substance and a layer of paper in which stretchability is imparted in one direction at least by a pleated formation of the web, said layers being adhesively joined with a continuously plastic adhesive penetrating the pleats.

13. A composite fabric comprising a distortable woven backing web, and a web of paper which has been creped so as tohave stretchability transverse to the lines of creping, said paper being adhesively secured to said backing web at intervals only, the areas of adhesive union being discontinuous at least in the direction of said lines of creping, and being relatively closely spaced throughout the body of the composite fabric. a

14. A composite fabric as claimed in claim 13, wherein the said paper web is slack between the areas of adhesive union, i. e. has, between said areas, a greater effective length than corresponding portions of said backing web.

15. A composite fabric comprising a foundation web of cloth, and a universally stretchable web of paper, said stretchable web adhesively joined to said foundation web at closely interspaced intervals, said intervals being so spaced that upondistortion of said foundation web, the greater part of the overlying area of paper expands toaccommodate said distortion in portions essentially free of attachment to said foundation web.

16. A composite fabric comprising a foundation web of cloth and a universally stretchable web of paper, said stretchable web adhesively joined to said foundation web by a layer of adhesive substance which is effectively discontinuous as'respects the adhesive juncture of the webs, the stretchable web deriving its stretchabiiity from gatherings therein, and the free portions of said stretchable web as distinguished from the adhesively secured portions of said stretchable web comprising a plurality of said gatherings, the

adhesively secured portions being of approximately the same area as the free portions.

17. A composite fabric comprising a foundation layer of cloth, and a layer of universally stretchable paper cemented thereto by an adhesive in interspaced effective areas, said effective areas so spaced and proportioned that upon distortion of said foundation layer, the larger part of the overlying area of the paper will be in puckered condition essentially displaced from the plane of said foundation web, while said webs retain in said distorted area a degree of adhesive union.

18. .A composite fabric comprising a foundation web and a web of corrugated and creped paper, said webs being adhesively joined together tion web.

20. A bag made of a composite fabric comprising a foundation web of cloth and a universally stretchable web, said stretchable web adhesively'joined to said foundation web at closely interspaced areas, and characterized by a greater surface area of the stretchable web between said areas of juncture than the corresponding surfac area of the foundation web.

I WILLIAM WALLACE ROWE. 

